Esquire Fiction Contest Part 2: Never, Ever Bring This Up Again

If you missed Part 1 of my inappropriately hilarious barroom tale of football and male hygiene, be sure to head HERE. If you’re all caught up, I present to you Part 2 of Sara Dobie’s “Never, Ever Bring This Up Again.”

Never, Ever Bring This Up Again, Part 2

A block later we’re back at my bar. It doesn’t have a sign, but there’s my damn dog, sitting with his tongue hanging out, tied to a parking meter out front. I didn’t do this to my dog; my business partner, James, did this to my dog, because he doesn’t like cutting limes with a dog at his feet.

“Guess James is here,” Max says.

Joby looks like he’s about to get laid when he sees me. His brown, doggy eyes shine, and he’s smiling. “Hey, dude,” I say, patting his head. He’s half Irish Wolfhound, so he has a huge skull. No one messes with my dog; I guess we have that in common.

I turn to head inside, and Joby barks when I open the door to my bar.

“Joby, no,” Max says.

Joby sits down, resuming his tongue-flapping posture. I hate that my dog listens to Max.

Inside, it’s dark. We don’t open until four, so the place is empty. There’s one TV tuned to ESPN, rehashing the well-deserved Steelers victory from the night before. My sandals stick to the decimated hardwood floor, and I almost fall forward after wading through what looks like a spilled Jager-bomb.

“Hey, grace,” announces James’ voice from the dark.

“Hey, man,” Max says, and he brushes past me. One of the bar stools does a shimmy when he walks by; Max isn’t walking straight anymore.

After dislodging my shoe from the sap-like spill, I walk toward the back of the bar—toward my office. “Have you morons slept?” James asks.

I pause and glance at the TV. It’s Hines Ward, flying through the air to catch a Ben Roethlisberger pass in the end zone. I almost drool, so I close my mouth.

“Hello? Nolan?” James says.

“No, we never slept.”

James is a big guy. I’ve seen him bounce men Max’s size like skipped rocks across King Street. Funny, because he looks cuddly. He has this tight, curly brown afro, and at the right angle, it glows like a halo under the Charleston streetlights.

“You get his balls waxed?” James says, nodding toward Max, who’s fiddling around with something behind the bar.

“I’m working on it,” I reply, and I stomp to my office.

James and I met as seniors at the College of Charleston. We smoked a lot of weed together and wallowed in our shared lack of career aspirations. It had been James’ idea to take over his dad’s bar on King Street. It had also been his idea to make me co-owner. I think he was in love with me once, but he never said anything so I wasn’t sure.

The fluorescent light is already on when I reach the office. It’s the size of a bathroom stall with 1970s wood paneling on the walls. The floor is as sticky as the rest of the place, and it smells like smoke. The only office-appropriate deco is the computer and telephone.

I click on the Yellow Pages website that I bookmarked for taxis and pizza delivery joints. I start typing “bikini wax” into the search box just as Max arrives in the doorway wearing silver shades and carrying two glasses of Red Bull. For some reason, I think, Never trust a man in aviators.

I take the iced energy drink without saying a word.

“My mouth tastes like Bigfoot’s ass right now,” Max says.

I stop typing, hands floating a half inch above the dusty keyboard. I look up at Max, and his tongue is moving inside his mouth like Joby’s when he’s trying to eat peanut butter. “Jesus,” I mutter, and I dial the first number that pops up on my screen.

I hold the receiver in my right hand and pick up my Red Bull as the phone rings. I take a sip, and it ain’t Red Bull. It’s Red Bull and vodka, and I’d say the ratio is about fifty-fifty. “Max!” I spit the concoction on my desk just as a high-pitched female voice says, “Hello, it’s a beautiful day at Stella Salon.”

“Hey,” I say, wiping booze from my chin. “Hey, I was wondering, do you wax balls?”

Max sounds like he sucked water into his lungs, and the high-pitched voice on the phone sounds like she’s the one choking on liquor. I hang up when she says no, but I’m ready with a follow-up phone number. I dial, and Max grabs my hand.

“Come on, I was kidding about the bet.”

“I wasn’t,” I reply, pulling my wrist out of his grasp, but he doesn’t let go. His hands are strong from years of spinning bottle caps off beer bottles.

When Max interviewed for a bartending job, he admitted he wasn’t a big guy. He explained he’d spent his life staying out of fights by being funny, and James and I agreed; we liked that trait. We had enough big dudes around; why not hire a funny guy? Plus, women liked Max, even if he was what I called a “short narcissist.” On top of that, I liked Max from the start, and well, that never happened.

“Nolan, come on, give it up,” he says, and he lets go of my hand as an answering machine beep echoes in my ear.

“Hey, my name is Nolan, and I need someone to wax my buddy’s balls. If your salon offers this service, please call me back,” I say, and I leave the bar number and repeat my name before hanging up and glaring at Max. I see myself reflected in his aviators, and I resemble a Charleston homeless person. My dingy brown hair is in a frizz-ball on one side, and there’s old mascara smeared under my blue, bloodshot eyes. “You made the bet, and the Steelers won. The guys will think you’re a wuss if you don’t go through with it.”

“They won’t think I’m a wuss when I tell them I kissed you last week.”

“Moron.” I yank Max into my office, slamming the door behind him. “You won’t say a damn word.”

“Of course I won’t,” Max says, looking like I kicked him in the nuts. “I was just messing around. Speaking of…” he says, and he puts his drink down long enough to kiss me again. I let it happen, and it’s not messy or drunk, even though we’re both messy and drunk.

I remember the time he found me a cab on my birthday because I was about to be sick at the bar. He ran a block down King Street and shoved some chick in platforms out of his way to do it. Another time, a man resembling an ex-basketball player grabbed my ass, and Max got the crap kicked out of himself trying to defend me.

He pulls away. “You taste like stale cigarettes,” he says, but he’s smiling like the Cheshire Cat if he’d eaten Alice.

“Whatever,” I say, tumbling back into my vintage desk chair with the broken front wheel and sagging left armrest. “Regardless of your kissing me, there’s still the note on the chalkboard.”

“What note on the chalkboard?”

“The one that says, ‘Ask Max about his balls.’”

“Bull.”

“You don’t believe me? Go see for yourself.”

He turns around, knocking me and my chair into the wall with the side of his knee. I hiss like a pissed off mammal, and Max goes running back into mid-day bar dark. I wait for it. Wait for it. Then, “Hey! Who wrote that?”

He’s back yelling at me. The aviators are in his right hand, his morning cocktail in his left, and Max is pissed. I’ve seen it before—the way his brow wrinkles in the middle and his mouth hangs half-open. He juts out his chin, curving his upper spine like an old woman with osteoporosis, and his posturing reminds me that the Steelers won the Super Bowl.

“Who wrote that?”

“James.”

“James? When?”

“Last night after the game.”

“So people saw that?”

“The whole bar saw that. Can you say…wuss?”

“Aw, hell,” Max says, and he puts his aviators back on. For a moment, his “Aw, hell” reminds me that Max is a Southern boy—something he tries to hide because he thinks the accent makes him sound dumb. Max never went to college, and I think he resents that I know this.

There’s rustling down the hall from my office, and sunlight reflects off Max’s sunglasses and into my face. “Jessica, you gotta help me,” Max says, and he disappears from view.

I take a sip of my Red Bull, vodka. I hear Max talking to our waitress, Jessica, and I take another sip. James appears in the door and says, “What’s going on with you two?”

“What?”

“Nolan,” James says, because James knows me better than anyone.

“Nothing’s going on. Just tired. And drunk.”

“Go home,” he says, and I think it’s funny that when James is sad, his afro seems to shrink.

“No. I have to find a salon. Max is not getting away with this shit.”

“I agree, but it can wait until you both get some sleep.”

I won’t be able to sleep.

“Nolan!” I hear Jessica yell my name. “Somebody’s messing with your dog!”

“It’s probably Byron,” I say and shove past James.

* * *

The End. Part 2. More to come…

Esquire Fiction Contest Part 1: Never, Ever Bring This Up Again

This year, Esquire Magazine’s Fiction Contest featured three prompts: “Twenty-Ten,” “An Insurrection,” and “Never, Ever Bring This Up Again.” Something about the final category spoke to me. Who knows? Maybe it was the start of football season. Maybe it was me, reminiscing about my college days of drinking at sun-up. I can’t say for sure. What I can say is that a story came from this prompt—a story that I consider very much ME.

Yes, I’m always ME. However, I do like to try new things with my writing. I like to go somewhat off the Sara Dobie path to see what else I can do. However, there are also times when I stick to my guns. I write from my insides, out, pouring my sense of humor, my sense of life, and my penchant for cussing like a sailor onto the page, and in those moments, I feel free. I feel happy. I feel most like myself, and with the prompt, “Never, Ever Bring This Up Again,” I was quite at home.

So I’ve decided to share this story with my readers. As I mentioned last week, November is National Novel Writing Month. I’m not writing a novel this month. However, in homage to National Novel Writing Month, I submit the following short story—crude, honest, and inappropriate as it is. I will be posting segments over the course of this week. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I present, thanks to the Esquire Magazine Fiction Contest, “Never, Ever Bring This Up Again.”

Never, Ever Bring This Up Again

Max and I made a bet that if the Steelers won the Super Bowl, he would get his balls waxed. Well. The Steelers won the Super Bowl. Now, it’s the day after my victory. Max and I stand in a salon two blocks from my sports bar, and this chick with fake blonde hair stares at me like this is all my fault. I guess it is my fault; I’m the girl who initially joked about the bet the day before. Max merely agreed, and even then only after I’d fed him beers—the high gravity kind that’ll mess you up faster than a bull at Pamplona.

“So you’re telling me you won’t do it,” Max says, and the chick chews her green gum and holds it in the side of her mouth. She chews a couple times then uses her pink tongue to swoosh it to the other side. It’s a green gum dance, and I’m drunk enough from the day, night, and morning to be entertained.

I blink when Max groans, because it reminds me of a sound he made during our unexpected make out session a week before.

“Max,” I say, and I take hold of his arm, “let’s go back to the bar.”

“No, they should be able to do this. If they can wax a woman down there, why not a dude?”

It occurs to me that it’s strange Max is the one fighting to have his balls waxed. I’d suggested the bet, and my team had won the Super Bowl the night before. I should be angry that these salon wenches won’t do it. Instead, my eyes dart back and forth from the green chewing gum and Max’s Atlanta Falcons jersey.

“I’m sorry, sir,” says gum girl, rolling her eyes. “We don’t perform those services.”

“Well, who does?”

“I don’t know, sir,” she replies, and I get lost as her tongue does another loop over the tops of her bottom teeth. It’s about then I notice we’re making a scene. I’d been distracted by Max and bubble gum, but as I look around the sunlit foyer of the posh salon, I realize there are a number of raised eyebrows and headshakes.

I glance at Max. He isn’t talking loudly. The attention is fully based—I think—on the fact that we are two people wearing football jerseys who have been drinking since noon the day before. Oops. My bad.

* * *

“Well, that was a bust,” he says after we leave, but I’m not listening. I’m checking out the scene on King Street—working folk dressed in business casual bustling about in front of retail stores and palmetto trees. I can’t remember the last time I woke up this early. We get a few strange looks as we walk aimlessly north, and then this one dude in a tie and khakis lifts a fist.

“Go Steelers,” he says, and I hear Max cuss at my side.

I nod at the khakis man and throw a fist up, too. Yeah, I’m a chick, but when you own a sports bar, you adapt.

“I hate you,” Max says.

“No, you don’t,” I reply, “you want to shave your balls for me.” But I understand his frustration. I hate it when my team loses, too.

I glance over at Max, and he doesn’t look as tired as he should after staying up all night. He still looks eighteen years old, even though he’s twenty-six. He’s short—my height in flats—and he’s blond with blue eyes. More than that, he’s funny. He doesn’t take anything seriously, which was why I figured letting him kiss me last Sunday didn’t matter.

“I guess we can’t fulfill your bet,” he says, putting his hands in his jean pockets and glancing left to right as we jaywalk across Calhoun Street.

Next to us is Marion Square—a block-size grass park that houses the Charleston Farmer’s Market every Saturday afternoon and sunbathing college girls throughout the spring. On this Monday, I see a few ladies wearing their Sunday best. I wonder if they’ve been drinking since yesterday, too.

“I was gonna do it, you know,” Max continues. “But that crazy chick wouldn’t let me.”

I glance at Max again, and I realize he’s smiling. That’s when I understand. His ambitious bargaining with the gum chewer was a front. He knew she was going to say no when we’d asked about waxing his balls. I grabbed his shoulder, “Oh, hell no.”

“What?”

“I’m sure someone in town waxes balls.”

“She said no.”

“That was one salon. I’m looking it up online at the bar,” I say, walking now with the purpose of a drunk chick.

Max grabs my wrist and spins me around. It’s moments like this when I remember he’s stronger than me, despite his stature. I felt as much when he pushed me against a brick wall to kiss me only a week before. “Nolan, she said no.”

“Well, I’m sure we can find someone who will say yes.”

“Damn it.”

“You agreed to the bet, dude.”

“I didn’t think you were serious.”

“I’m always serious,” I say, and his blue eyes crinkle around the edges. For the first time since I’ve known him, Max shuts the hell up.

* * *

The End. Part 1. More to come.

Coen Brothers’ A Serious Man and the Fear of God

When A Serious Man ended, the theater was silent for a good twenty seconds. I mean, it was a silence that would have been awkward…if it hadn’t been so deserved. The opening scene in this Coen Brother’s flick is randomly set in an undisclosed time in some snowy Jewish community. I say undisclosed, because there’s no actual date. You know that the dude in this opening scene was travelling by horse and the wife was cooking with fire, so that should give you some idea. The husband and wife have a little tiff about a soon-to-be-arriving guest. The wife thinks their guest died years ago; the husband says that isn’t possible, because he JUST TALKED to the guy. Unbeknownst to the audience, I think this scene sets the tone for the rest of the movie. You have to question: what is good; what is bad? Who deservers punishment; who deserves mercy? Is there good and bad? And does any of it matter anyway?

The viewer is then transported on a Jefferson Airplane. Well, at least the viewer starts hearing Jefferson Airplane, “Don’t You Want Somebody to Love.” In other words, you’re transported to 1967, America, where we’re introduced to our protagonist, Larry Gopnik. Larry is your basic nice guy. He has a wife. He has kids. He has a job. He has glasses. And he’s perpetually stepped on by those around him. He’s taken advantage of by everyone, from his wife who wants a divorce, his kids who don’t listen, to his neighbor who mysteriously always mows part of Larry’s yard, to his brother with no home and a draining neck cyst. Need I go on? I could. I mean, this guy is a living, breathing doormat, and yet, he’s endearing. You like Larry Gopnik. You want him to win. But of course, this is a Coen Brother’s movie. Therefore, you know the protagonist can’t win.

Personally, I’ve been following the Coen Brothers for years. YEARS. I’ve even rented movies they made before I was old enough to watch movies, okay? And I know they derive the majority of their laughs from a protagonist’s pain. Look at Barton Fink. Look at Fargo. Look at Raising Arizona. Just like all these others, in A Serious Man, we laugh at Larry’s awkwardness. We laugh at his misfortune. As his life devolves into that of a modern-day Biblical Job, we keep laughing, and it’s a Coen Brothers signature—they make audiences laugh at the terrible and unfortunate.

I can tell you they take this on a religious jaunt. Larry is, after all, Jewish. As things get worse and worse, everyone wants to know, “Did you go to the Rabbi?” As Larry’s son’s Bar Mizvah approaches, people continue to ask, “Did you go to the Rabbi?” Of course, being Jewish, yes, Larry goes to the Rabbi. He asks, “Why is this happening to me? What have I done wrong?” Does he get his answer? Well. I feel as if that would be giving too much away. I will tell you this: at the conclusion, when the theater went silent, after I finally got up and walked to the parking lot with my brother, after we started discussing the film, I realized we could have been talking about completely different movies. My brother—a self-admitted and respectable film buff—had missed what I felt was the cornerstone and reason for the existence of A Serious Man. And the TERROR underlying the message of this film.

If you want to go into this film with no idea how things will end up, stop reading. I just can’t help myself. I have to say more. In A Serious Man, the Coen Brothers do all they can to make you think that nothing has meaning. They make you believe that nothing happens for a reason—they make you think that everything, in fact, happens for no reason at all. However, blame it on my Christian upbringing… I feel like the conclusion of this movie was sneaky. I feel like the Coen Brothers bated their viewers with this idea of uncertainty and lack of reason so that they could fist your face in the last five seconds. I think this film proves that there is, in fact, reason. There is a God who still tests us, just like in the Old Testament. And, in the world of Joel and Ethan Coen, this God is still ANGRY like in the Old Testament. Maybe I’m wrong. You’ll have to see it and let me know. I’m just saying, A Serious Man—in its own screwed up Coen Bros. way—reminds us that life does have meaning. That we do have control over what happens to us. That we can make good and bad decisions, and that those decisions can have grand implications.

Or. Maybe it’s just a really funny, dark movie about nothing at all.

November is National Novel Writing Month

The goal of National Novel Writing Month is to write a 50,000 word novel in thirty days. Well. You up for it? Huh? Sound impossible. Well, it’s not. From their website…

National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30.

Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.

Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It’s all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.

Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that’s a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down.

As you spend November writing, you can draw comfort from the fact that, all around the world, other National Novel Writing Month participants are going through the same joys and sorrows of producing the Great Frantic Novel. Wrimos meet throughout the month to offer encouragement, commiseration, and—when the thing is done—the kind of raucous celebrations that tend to frighten animals and small children.

In 2008, we had over 120,000 participants. More than 20,000 of them crossed the 50k finish line by the midnight deadline, entering into the annals of NaNoWriMo superstardom forever. They started the month as auto mechanics, out-of-work actors, and middle school English teachers. They walked away novelists.

So, to recap:

What: Writing one 50,000-word novel from scratch in a month’s time.

Who: You! We can’t do this unless we have some other people trying it as well. Let’s write laughably awful yet lengthy prose together.

Why: The reasons are endless! To actively participate in one of our era’s most enchanting art forms! To write without having to obsess over quality. To be able to make obscure references to passages from our novels at parties. To be able to mock real novelists who dawdle on and on, taking far longer than 30 days to produce their work.

When: You can sign up anytime to add your name to the roster and browse the forums. Writing begins November 1. To be added to the official list of winners, you must reach the 50,000-word mark by November 30 at midnight. Once your novel has been verified by our web-based team of robotic word counters, the partying begins.

Still confused? Just visit the How NaNoWriMo Works page!

Will I be taking part this year? Unfortunately, no. If I’d known about this LAST year, it would have been perfect, since I was actually writing a novel last year. Instead, I will be posting another short story in pieces over the coming week or so. I entered this little ditty in the Esquire Magazine Fiction Contest. The complete guidelines to this fun (and challenging) contest are HERE. I went for the “Never, Ever Bring This Up Again” option. As I said, I’ll get to posting segments soon. Until then, you should go over the National Novel Writing Month website and sign up!

Paranormal Activity: Good Luck Sleeping

I saw the Blair Witch Project. Within the first two minutes of Paranormal Activity, I was scared of the same thing. Not so much the horror movie aspect but the motion sickness—shaky camera angles from a hand-held camera. Nothing worse than trying to watch a movie and just ending up nauseous. However, I was wrong. Paranormal Activity is nothing like Blair Witch. Sure, it involves a hand-held video camera and no-name actors. Yes, there’s the paranormal aspect. Yeah, you’ll be pretty dang scared. However, Paranormal Activity one-ups Blair Witch in that it stays with you long after you leave the theater. It makes you scared to go home. It makes you scared to sleep, because it’s about two people just like you and me. And it takes place in your basic suburban home. And things go really, really wrong, to the point of making grown men say, “Well, I’m sleeping with the lights on tonight.”

It’s about a young couple, moving into a new place, after three years of dating bliss. I say bliss with a hint of sarcasm, because it’s the bliss we’ve all seen a million times. This couple reminded me of couples I’ve met and befriended over the years. They’re happy. They’re funny. But they’re not perfect. They’re not a “movie” couple. They’re a real life couple next door, and that’s what makes the movie even more terrifying. It’s back to the Blair Witch dichotomy. Blair Witch happens in the woods to weird college video nerds. Paranormal Activity happens in a house just like yours to people you know and love. So this couple moves into a new house, and freaky stuff starts happening. Like any young dude, out to protect his woman, the lead male decides to set up a video camera in their bedroom to try and capture whatever’s going on via videotape.

Again, this worried me. I had flashes of the alien scene in Signs when you see way too much, and it takes away all the terror. However, the beauty of Paranormal Activity is that you never see too much. You see enough to make you curl into fetal position and cover your eyes. I’m not here to be a spoiler. I’m not going to give you too many details. I will tell you there’s this part with POWDER. Not the super duper pale dude from that sentimental 90s flick, but actual powder—the kind you put in your shoes when it’s hot outside. It was this powder scene that made me want start crying and never, ever sleep alone again.

The fact is they made this film in a week. They spent about fifteen grand. The director used his own home as the film’s setting, and yet, it’s number one at the box office. It made over nine million its opening weekend. It’s because when one guy sees it, he tells his buddies. His buddies tell their buddies, and soon, an entire city has seen Paranormal Activity. I will tell you this: there’s no reason to see the movie twice. It is great. It is terrifying. However, once you’ve seen it, I just don’t think the terror will be the same. You’ll know what’s coming, and I imagine, the pithy couple dialogue will get old a second time around. Yes, yes, yes, you should see it once, though. You should see it in a group, because Lord knows, I wasn’t walking to my car alone after that movie. And yeah, when I got home, I was looking over my shoulder and locking my bedroom door. As if that would help. As a serious horror flick fan, I know that never helps. But I’m human, so I did it. Don’t judge me. Because I know, once you see Paranormal Activity, you’ll be doing the same thing.

And I swear, you’ll never look at powder the same way again. Happy Halloween…

Immature Laughs

This image came from Shelf Awareness this morning. It’s perfect for those days when all you really need is a damn fine bought of immature laughter. Enjoy. And do check out the link below the image, too. Cool things happening in Charleston for Halloween this weekend!

If you can’t find the book you want, you’re probably shopping at the …

Done laughing? Here’s a link to the Dark Arts Ball at Eye Level Art, happening this Saturday, HALLOWEEN. Don’t miss out! Click here for more info!

Pecha Kucha 4 reminds us why we live in Charleston

Holy City Idol Worship
By Sara Dobie, for the Charleston City Paper

One of Pecha Kucha’s taglines? “Thinking and drinking.” Standing at the Music Farm in a crowd of beer-holding, Buddy Holly glasses-wearing, demographic-defying participants, I’d have to say that yes, there was much thinking and drinking going on. There was also the embracing of our fair city and the celebration of the artists, authors, musicians, and doggone talent Charleston has been known to encompass. I’d say the centerpiece of this event was, in fact, the city itself, while the presenters formed a talented worship circle, idolizing The Holy City and all her historic glory.

“Pecha Kucha” is Japanese for “the sound of conversation,” and when I was asked where I would be spending my Wednesday evening, it took three tries for me to say it right. It’s a high class open mic slash happy hour, where creativity is discussed like an old friend you’ve known since kindergarten. Presenters get only six minutes, forty seconds to present, while 20 slides flash above their heads — images that make you want to believe what each presenter is saying. The event occurs in over 135 cities worldwide as an informal celebration of intrinsic creative talent, buried in the participants and perhaps, the onlookers, as well.

DJ Natty Heavy at Pecha Kucha 4

As I said, the centerpiece of Pecha Kucha 4 was Charleston, and this was apparent immediately, thanks to one of the only man in a tucked-in shirt, Bill Eubanks, from Urban Edge Studio. The mission of Mr. Eubanks was to make us laugh. The mission of Urban Edge Studio was slightly more important. They want to keep Charleston beautiful and not just down Broad Street (which was paid at least thirty precious seconds of hero worship from Eubanks over the course of his pitch). No, they want to go after the horrendous Rivers Avenue, turning it from a nondescript line of fast food joints into a quaint neighborhood with palm trees, without drunks and prostitutes. Of all the presenters, Urban Edge definitely made the best use of their slides.

Other highlights included painter Michael Gray, who may have missed his calling as a stand-up comedian. When he discussed “The Greatest Mud Painting Ever,” I just about dropped my notebook. DJ Natty Heavy added a live crowd sample to an impromptu mix and made even the most corporate of corporate men want to get up and dance. Children’s book author Jonathan Miller embraced the association of artists as poor and yet triumphed the profession, highlighted by a hand-written note from an elementary school kid who told him to keep getting that “cash money.”

Pecha Kucha 5 is January 21, 2010, location as yet to be identified. It is an event that embraces Charleston, and it embraces the talent inherent in this beautiful city. We all owe a lot to The Holy City, and Pecha Kucha might as well be Japanese for “Charleston is the best place on Earth.”

For more things Chucktown, visit the Charleston City Paper website. And have a thrilling weekend, people. Enjoy that weather!

An H and Five Ws with Lowcountry Author Dorothea Benton Frank

I’m admittedly a “Yankee.” I’m from Ohio, and I didn’t know the word “Lowcountry” until I moved here. (I still didn’t really get it for months, however, and I still get lost if I leave downtown.) Anyway, my neighbor upon my arrival in Charleston was Sullivan’s Island, born and raised, and she still makes fun of my Northern roots. However, it was this neighbor who made me truly appreciate the art and culture of the South. My victim…er…interviewee for this H and Five Ws is a Lowcountry icon. As a fellow writer and newbee Southerner, I am happy to introduce author Dorothea Benton Frank…

Dorothea Benton Frank is the New York Times bestselling author of BULLS ISLAND (William Morrow 2008), THE LAND OF MANGO SUNSETS (William Morrow 2007), THE CHRISTMAS PEARL (William Morrow 2007), FULL OF GRACE (William Morrow 2006), PAWLEYS ISLAND (Berkley 2005), SHEM CREEK (Berkley 2004), ISLE OF PALMS (Berkley 2003), PLANTATION (Jove 2001) and SULLIVAN’S ISLAND (Jove 2000). Ms Frank has appeared on NBC’s Today Show, Parker Ladd’s Book Talk, and many local network affiliated television stations. She is a frequent speaker on creative writing and the creative process for students of all ages and in private venues as the National Arts Club, the Junior League of New York, Friends of the Library organizations and the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. She has also been a guest speaker at the South Carolina Book Festival, Novello, North Carolina’s festival of books and the Book and Author annual event in Charleston, SC, sponsored by the Post & Courier. The author, who was born and raised on Sullivan’s Island in South Carolina and has been married for 25 years to Peter Frank, currently divides her time between New Jersey and South Carolina where their children attend college.

So here we go! An H and Five Ws with Lowcountry Author Dorothea Benton Frank

How did you become a best-selling author?
I had a great publisher who loved the story of SULLIVAN’S ISLAND, and they sold the dickens out of it.

Who is the writer you admire the most?
Dickens.  Just kidding.  Dumb joke, duh.  I like a lot of writers.  Too many to choose but one.  Among the dead?  Shakespeare, Wilde, Austen, the Brontes, O’Connor, Conrad, blah, blah, blah – who doesn’t love them?  In today’s world?  William Trevor takes the award for Great Britain and Old Man Conroy made the South rise again.  Although Harper Lee helped.  And even though Meg Wolitzer is a Yankee, she’s a heckuva writer.

What was it like appearing on The Today Show?
Intense, unnerving and terrifying.

Where is your favorite place to go in the Charleston, SC area?
Bob Ellis Shoes on King Street.  Ask for Richard.  And the beach on Sullivan’s Island, obviously.

When have you had the most trouble finishing a novel?
When I don’t have a deadline, which was only with my first book.  After that, I had to discipline myself to make deadlines, and you are never finished with a book.  I could always rewrite.

WHY are you a writer?
This is a much more complicated question than you might imagine.  The short answer is I write to entertain, to learn and to express my deep and abiding love for the Lowcountry of South Carolina. 

For more about Dorothea Benton Frank, visit her website: http://www.dotfrank.com/index.html. Thanks so much for this interview, Dorothea! I wish you continued luck and prosperity! (See we Yankees CAN be nice!)

Fletcher 3 rocks the Charleston Righchus Renaissance

Fletcher III Self Portrait

I felt like the oldest person in the room. I also felt extremely untalented, surrounded by artists of impressive caliber who were barely old enough to buy beer. I’m talking about Friday’s Righchus Renaissance, hosted by Eye Level Art at their Warehouse Gallery on Heriot Street. The Warehouse Gallery is high up on the far reaches of the peninsula, and you’d miss it if you didn’t know it was there. However, it was an ideal location for the grand, colorful paintings of 22-year-old Fletcher 3 (a.k.a. Fletcher Williams III), who modestly stole the show.

Seemingly, this young artist does not paint small portraits. His portraits were each at least three feet high, two feet wide, with colors that echoed as loud as the bass beats from hip-hop artist and event coordinator, Righchus (a.k.a. Matthew Bostick). On display were different eras of Fletcher 3’s artistic career. Half the murals were on the abstract side, making use of bold hues and strong lines. The more recent — and in one case, brand new — pieces featured realistic subjects, twisted into Dali-esque contortions and scenarios. I had a chance to talk to Fletcher 3’s mom, and she told me that all his art means something; he just won’t tell her what.

Other artists at the Righchus Renaissance included Dalia Dalili of Mock Couture, whose Nintendo-themed jewelry took me back to the days of Super Mario Brothers. There were the Brwn Drby crew, screening T-shirts for the crowd. Then, of course, there was the music. DJs Joeski and John Kutter did a good job of warming up the crowd. Spoken word artist Rasheen Maliek (a.k.a. RaRa) carried the frenzy forth.     Finally, Righchus made his way on stage, with a distinctly Rage Against the Machine meets Jay-Z feel, and got the crowd moving.

The event outgrew its planned space at 103 Spring at the last minute, which turned out to be fortuitous for the event; the bareness of the warehouse walls made Fletcher 3’s art pop, and you could practically see the music pumping through the high ceilings and melding with the emotive faces and bold backdrops of each painting.

Mock Couture reminded me what it’s like to be a kid. Brwn Drby made me a T-shirt and introduced me to Eye Level Art’s Mike Elder. (“They’re all solid people,” Mike said of his featured artists.) Righchus showcased his music videos, projected floor to ceiling behind his three-man band. Through all this, an unassuming Fletcher 3 happily wandered the floor. He only looked uncomfortable once, and that was because I made him pose for a picture.

See additional images on the Charleston City Paper website: http://www.charlestoncitypaper.com/charleston/fletcher-3-rocks-the-righchus-renaissance/Content?oid=1460348.

Halloween Time and A Nightmare on Elm Street

My friends have freaky nightmares. Some involve stolen cars and dome lights. Some involve me with a shaved head. There was one about Optimus Prime (don’t ask). Even I’ve had a couple that would scare a Twilight Zone fan into a Golden Girls addict. Now, it’s Halloween time. The days are gray. Leaves are changing color. There’s something distinctly creepy in the air. Being that I am a Halloween fanatic, I get into this time of year. I do the pumpkin carving. I wander through haunted cornfields and the occasional cemetery. Most importantly, I watch tons and tons of horror flicks. Which is what I did last night. I drank my pumpkin ale. I lit my cinnamon candles. And I watched A Nightmare on Elm Street.

Be wary of your own Nightmare...

I’ve seen A Nightmare on Elm Street before. I like to think I’ve seen it many times, but this assumption gives me pause. Because honestly, if I’ve seen this movie so many times throughout my childhood and into adult life, why was I still terrified last night? It’s an eighties flick, released back in 1984, when I was two years old. The tagline is, “You’ll never want to fall asleep again.” Yeah. No kidding. If you do, Freddy Krueger and his knife-fingers will be waiting for you.

Nightmare was directed by Wes Craven. I recently saw the original Last House on the Left, a 1972 “horror” flick, also directed by Craven. I put quotes around “horror” because I hated Last House on the Left. I thought it was slow moving. The characters were dumb. There was nothing scary about it. In fact, the best part involved a woman biting a man’s…well, YOU KNOW, and that wasn’t scary so much as hilarious! However, A Nightmare on Elm Street gave Wes Craven some time to grow, released twelve years after this initial “horror” flick debacle. And the growing is evident.

First off, the storyline is better. This is the tale of Freddy Krueger—a child murderer, killed by a clan of suburban parents for revenge (and named, by the way, after a bully who terrorized Craven as a kid). Well, revenge is Freddy’s in the end, as he haunts the dreams of said parents’ kids. And the dreams are icky. They’re the kind of nightmares you hope and pray you never have. The kind where you’re being chased but feel like you’re walking through knee-high oatmeal. The kind where bloody corpses speak to you and call for help. The kind where you really, really think you might die if you don’t wake up, and of course, the kids in A Nightmare on Elm Street do. They die, and it’s in disturbing, gory ways. Ideal for a horror movie; unwise for right before bed. I mean, 500 gallons of blood were used in the filming of this movie! Five-HUNDRED! That’s what real nightmares are made of, people.

Of course, the movie has its pleasantries. For instance, it’s Johnny Depp’s first movie. He got the role because the producer’s daughter thought he was “dreamy.” And he is dreamy, all young and buff with a pompadour even Elvis would have appreciated. Then, there’s the moral lesson: DON’T HAVE SEX! If you have sex, you will immediately be tortured and killed. (I swear, a parent wrote that part to teach high schoolers a lesson…) But the foundation of A Nightmare on Elm Street is its serious creepiness that caused me to almost fall off my couch and stop breathing when my roommate came pouncing into our apartment last night. It’s why I love horror movies. It’s why I love Halloween time. Every day during this time of year, I entertain the prospect of my own horror movie. What would I do if a psycho came after me in the night? I like to think I’d survive. I’d like to think I wouldn’t run up the stairs when I should be running out the door. I like to think I won’t say, “Who’s out there?” But how do I know for sure? Maybe I’d be the first to go…

If you love horror flicks, check out A Nightmare on Elm Street. It’s a classic, just like Halloween, Friday the 13^th, and The Shining. It’s Halloween time. It’s the time of year to light a candle, turn off all the lights, and scare yourself silly. Just don’t go to sleep. Freddy will be waiting for you.